Policy statements

Update In 2013, the Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee published a report on the “Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia”. That report, and the submissions to it, reveal much about current practice. Intersex refers to atypical internal and/or external anatomical sexual characteristics, where features usually regarded as male or female may be… Read more →

This is a policy statement by the global board of OII, and is endorsed by OII Australia. We, the board members of the Organisation Intersex International, wish to express our support of Drs. Feder, Dreger and Lindemann, for their vigilance and efforts to ensure the safety of intersex infants and their mothers who are currently… Read more →

A style guide to describing intersex people, intersex bodies, and the issues facing the intersex community. The guide, designed primarily for journalists and writers, contains video, audio and photographic content to illustrate the diversity of intersex identities, bodies and characteristics…

THERE are two fundamental issues that must be considered when considering terminology around intersex. Scientific nomenclature of intersex: INTERSEX is a scientific term that describes all differences of sex biology within the animal kingdom that are not hermaphroditic. Terminology such as “hermaphrodite”, “pseudo-hermaphrodite”, “disorders” and “conditions” have been used in some medical literature to describe… Read more →

OUR societies have accepted a binary construct between male and female which does not reflect Nature and the enormous variety of possible sexes which overlap one another in various gradations on a spectrum with male at one end and female at the other. The arbitrary division of biological sex into only two categories makes all… Read more →

THE creation of a new category to be designated intersex poses several problems. First of all, how do we define intersex? OII believes that there will be never a clear definition and at the same time, that it is not necessary to have a legal definition for intersex. We have no clear definitions for what… Read more →